This is a difficult article to write for some reason, perhaps
because it is a specific assignment rather than a
creative endeavour. I say this because I have the
strong feeling that, until I write this particular
piece of work, I will remain living broke. It’s
time the broke cycle was broken, so here I am
attempting to produce a meaningful group of words
about the hows and whys and whats of living below
the poverty line.

It’s easy to lay the
‘blame’ for my financial condition, but as always,
blame is a composite, made up of several factors
that worked together to create a sub-zero bank
balance for a period of years. And it is not that
I don’t work – I certainly do, in many ways! But
due to having a body that doesn’t hold up very well
under the weight of several debilitating
conditions, I am not employed outside my home and
am forced to live on a disability pension. Due to
being divorced and having a ‘deadbeat dad’ in my two youngest sons’ lives,
the pension is the largest portion of my income.
Slightly over one thousand dollars a month to
house, feed, clothe and take care of myself and
three school age children. The federal government
supplements this with a few hundred dollars called
a ‘child tax credit’ here in Canada, but there is
simply never enough money to cover everything.

What does a person do to
live and support their children when there is never
enough money? How cope with the stress and strain
of counting and recounting the scant few dollars
left after bills when there are always more days
left in the month than money to keep buying milk?

Most importantly, I never
use the word ‘poor’ in relation to my present
economic status, no matter how far below the
poverty line my income may fall in any given year.
I’m broke, not poor. To me, poor is permanent and
broke is temporary, and this mindset is critical to
existing this way. If I’m broke today, there is
hope that tomorrow, somehow, I will no longer be
broke. If I consider myself poor, I am putting
myself in a class that is often denigrated and
frowned upon by those with more.

I consider myself wealthy
in many ways, not least of all in the wealth of
love in my life from family and friends, my
parents, from five brothers, five sisters, and
seven children. Many people who have a great deal
of money do not have the love and concern of a
family around them, and I count this heavily on the
plus side of my ‘worthiness’ balance sheets.
I also consider myself wealthy in God-given talent,
even though those talents are not yet earning any
substantial income.

In a practical way, one of
the best coping mechanisms for never having enough
dollars is shopping at thrift stores. This seems
very obvious, but it always amazes me how many
people in reduced circumstances do not take
advantage of thrift stores to save themselves
money. I can go into my favourite shop, one called
Women in Need here in Calgary, spend twenty
dollars, and have a couple of new pieces of
clothing for the entire family, a couple of books,
and often a toy or two as well. If I need
furniture, I can afford to buy it from stores like
this.

As with everything else,
there are good thrift stores and bad thrift
stores. The ones who are in business for profit
are in the category I don’t go to. Women in Need
{there will likely be somewhere like this wherever
you live} does many wonderful things for the
community, including helping women on their own with children
with a one-time credit of a couple of hundred
dollars worth of goods. Often these stores will
employ people from the community who might
otherwise not be employed. In Canada, Goodwill
Industries provides many very reasonably priced
second hand retail outlets, and they hire people
from their communities who probably would not have
a job anywhere else.

A thrift store is one of
the only places I can actually take the children to
shop, and know they will allow me to stay within my
tight budget. Imagine the feeling of being able to
buy a huge bag of ‘new’ things for a mere twenty
dollars or so – very rewarding for all concerned,
and nobody feels ‘poor’ when there are new things
to be enjoyed. Previously enjoyed things, of
course, although I often find brand new clothing
for a dollar or two an item, pieces that have never
been worn, suits that would retail for several
hundred dollars, clothing with the original retail
tags still attached. God doesn’t often give me
money itself, but He does take care of my family’s
basic needs in style.

When you’re living broke,
guidelines such as the Canada Food Guide, which insists
that all people eat a number of portions from each
food group each day, are a joke. There is no way
on earth people living at this economic level can
afford to keep their children in enough food of
each variety to satisfy the nutrition guides. What
to do? Feed them as well as you can possibly
afford, learn how to make low cost but nutritious
meals that stretch to feed the three or four kids
you are already feeding and whatever friends happen
to be around at meal time, and buy generic kids’
vitamins as often and as regularly as possible.

Instead of constant fresh
fruit, which is terribly expensive, I help to
satisfy their need for fruit with concentrated
fruit strips, which can be obtained for a few
dollars per box. For fresh and green vegetables,
salad is a fairly economical alternative, and one
that kids will generally all eat. I stick to basic
fresh fruits like apples, bananas and grapes,
because I know they’ll be eaten quickly and not
hang around long enough to spoil. Homemade soups
and cookies are far more economical than those
purchased in the stores, and are just as tasty and
satisfying. In fact, the look on the faces of the
children when they come in from school on a home
baked cookie afternoon, with the delicious smells
wafting from the kitchen, make all the effort to do
it yourself very worthwhile. You save money and
make yourself ‘the Mom who bakes cookies’ all at
the same time. Some kids who’ve come in here look
and act like they’ve never had a homemade cookie in
their lives, which is a sad statement about our
society.

Living broke, there are
demeaning and humiliating things we must do at
times to make ends meet. These include things like
going to the food bank. When a parent has
three or four
hungry children and no more dollars in sight for
food, the parent must swallow their pride, prove
they’re ‘poor’ enough to avail themselves of the
services of the food bank, and stand in line with
the rest of the needy people who are forced to ask
for food. I’ll tell you, the first time I had to
do this, I was absolutely mortified – but you find
out that your pride won’t feed the kids, and you
swallow it yourself. Swallowing pride can fill you
up enough not to have to eat for quite a while…

There are good things that
come out of humbling yourself, good things for the
children, experiences they wouldn’t have had if you
were in the ‘enough money’ category. Like the year
that Santa and the Elves came to visit my home
because a neighbour convinced me to sign up for
help that year, and the resultant opportunity to
volunteer for a wonderful organization. Or the
year a company ‘adopted’ my family for Christmas
and brought endless presents, for myself and the
kids. The looks on their faces on those occasions
were worth enduring the humiliation involved.
Getting presents when you’re an only parent is a
rarity, unless you buy them for yourself from the
kids {and some of us spend it all on the kids}, so
that was very nice for me too. Anything that
benefits the children is a big benefit to me,
regardless of the personal degradation involved.

It embarrasses me
completely to be living broke. When I am out and
about, people generally assume I am at least well
off, if not wealthy. I dress well in my two dollar
clothes, I’ve worn beautiful outfits volunteering
for and/or as an invited guest at gala events, and
I carry myself in a way that suggests I am a person
of means. If my mental attitude was one of ‘poor’
and not ‘broke,’ I would not be able to present
myself in such a fashion. I do world-class work
with my literary website and with my own writings,
am taken seriously by others in my field, but I am
personally broke. An interesting dichotomy to live
with…

I wish I could offer more
down to earth and practical advice on how to live
so far beyond your means, but perhaps that is for
another article. The most important message I’m
trying to impart here is that, in some cases, mind
over matter does work. It’s just too bad there
aren’t thrift store utilities and creditors; life
would be a lot easier to deal with when living
broke!